⁄
Soap Box Articles ⁄
Web Analytics for the Numerically-Challenged Marketeer
If you are numbered among what might be called 'numerically-challenged marketeers', then read on to find out how to hold your own in a world of numbers.
'Engagement Marketing' is fast becoming a watchword for marketeers keen to capitalise upon the opportunities found in the online world, and at the heart of this exercise is the direction and purpose brought by sound web analytics.
Yet, for many marketeers, the relatively new discipline of web analytics is a foreign, strange, and sometimes scary world. Web analytics has moved away from its traditional landscape of endless web logs detailing data only interesting to the techy, to being a description of how customers interact with the online manifestation of business enterprises.
In a world ruled by numbers, how can you find your feet to fight off the demons? How can you hold your own, and have something to say in this alien environment?
Let's begin by looking at the problem in slightly more detail.
Web Analytics - A world of Numbers
Web analytics is inevitably about numbers. Rows and rows of numbers all tallying up to confusion and fear for you and your fellow marketeers.
Web Analytics - A world of Alien Concepts
Talk of landing pages, A/B testing, scenario designs, conversion funnels, and design personas can be off-putting to the traditional marketeer. A whole new world has opened up, and the landscape is alien. Talk of 'Conversion Ratios' is the icing on the cake - 'how do ratios work again?'
Web Analytics - It's the Web World
If your world is one of traditional marketing - paper, printers, and post - then the world of hyperlinks, clickthroughs, websites, and email can be daunting. This is made even more difficult because the web is also a world where the rules are different: where timescales are truncated, customer participation is optional, and distractions are many.
In such a marketing environment, it is easy to feel confused - even to feel disempowered or disenfranchised by talk of web analytics. 'Web' 'Analytics' is a world where the geek and the pony-tailed designer rule the roost.
But help is at hand. What follows are a number of Rules to help you hold your own, and even find your feet, to offer advise, guidance, and even direction.
Rule 1 - Know Who Is Boss
Remember firstly that web analytics is the servant of marketing and not its master. Normal marketing objectives drive analytical investigation. You are still looking for ways to build the environment in which people can buy and that is true online as it is offline. The proliferation of numbers doesn't take away this fact.
Rule 2 - We are Still Talking about Humans
However much web designers, strategists, and analysts seek to obfuscate, the web is still about people. It is still about humans doing funny things with ideas, pictures, and text. When the going gets tough and web analytics seems to overwhelm, go back to thoughts of how you are going to inform human behaviours. As we all know, humans are not always sophisticated, and so a good grasp of human psychology can often drive improved results better than any technical knowledge or innovation.
Rule 3 - The customer is the Subject
Who knows your customer better than you and your marketing and sales teams? Intelligent web analytics is about using technology to see the customer more clearly. You know your customer, so take the lead in informing the analytical requirements - what do you want to know?
Rule 4 - Web Objectives are business Objectives
Gone are the days of having a website because everyone else has one. Now every marketeer worth their salt knows their sites should have a clear set of business objectives that are being actioned, satisfied, and furthered. Web analytics serves these objectives. You know what you want to achieve, get the analytics you need to understand how to make it happen.
Rule 5 - Let the Experts Run with Guidance
Be confident. You are still the leading light on your customer and the products and services you sell. Learn ways to use the skills of the analysts, designers, and strategists to serve the goals that you set.
When the fog of incomprehension falls there is a powerful response - ask the question: 'how does this help us understand and inform the behaviour of our customers better?' This will rapidly bring things back to a world that you can understand and lead.
Return to the Soap Box articles
View our Portfolio
Take a look at some of our recent works in our portfolio.
Would you like to get in touch?
Call us now on: 0845 468 0616, or fill in our contact form and we will be delighted to chat with you.
Twitter